Volume 2 — SONNETS.

FANCY.

O fancy, if thou flyest, come back anon, Thy fluttering wings are soft as love's first word, And fragrant as the feathers of that bird, Which feeds upon the budded cinnamon. I ask thee not to work, or sigh—play on, From nought that was not, was, or is, deterred; The flax that Old Fate spun thy flights have stirred, And waved memorial grass of Marathon. Play, but be gentle, not as on that day I saw thee running down the rims of doom With stars thou hadst been stealing—while they lay Smothered in light and blue—clasped to thy breast; Bring rather to me in the firelit room A netted halcyon bird to sing of rest.

COMPENSATION.

One launched a ship, but she was wrecked at sea; He built a bridge, but floods have borne it down; He meant much good, none came: strange destiny, His corn lies sunk, his bridge bears none to town, Yet good he had not meant became his crown; For once at work, when even as nature free, From thought of good he was, or of renown, God took the work for good and let good be. So wakened with a trembling after sleep, Dread Mona Roa yields her fateful store; All gleaming hot the scarlet rivers creep, And fanned of great-leaved palms slip to the shore, Then stolen to unplumbed wastes of that far deep, Lay the foundations for one island more.

LOOKING DOWN.

Mountains of sorrow, I have heard your moans, And the moving of your pines; but we sit high On your green shoulders, nearer stoops the sky, And pure airs visit us from all the zones. Sweet world beneath, too happy far to sigh, Dost thou look thus beheld from heavenly thrones? No; not for all the love that counts thy stones, While sleepy with great light the valleys lie. Strange, rapturous peace! its sunshine doth enfold My heart; I have escaped to the days divine, It seemeth as bygone ages back had rolled, And all the eldest past was now, was mine; Nay, even as if Melchizedec of old Might here come forth to us with bread and wine.

WORK.

Like coral insects multitudinous The minutes are whereof our life is made. They build it up as in the deep's blue shade It grows, it comes to light, and then, and thus For both there is an end. The populous Sea-blossoms close, our minutes that have paid Life's debt of work are spent; the work is laid Before our feet that shall come after us. We may not stay to watch if it will speed, The bard if on some luter's string his song Live sweetly yet; the hero if his star Doth shine. Work is its own best earthly meed, Else have we none more than the sea-born throng Who wrought those marvellous isles that bloom afar.

WISHING.

When I reflect how little I have done, And add to that how little I have seen, Then furthermore how little I have won Of joy, or good, how little known, or been: I long for other life more full, more keen, And yearn to change with such as well have run— Yet reason mocks me—nay, the soul, I ween, Granted her choice would dare to change with none; No,—not to feel, as Blondel when his lay Pierced the strong tower, and Richard answered it— No,—not to do, as Eustace on the day He left fair Calais to her weeping lit— No,—not to be, Columbus, waked from sleep When his new world rose from the charmèd deep.

TO ——.

Strange was the doom of Heracles, whose shade Had dwelling in dim Hades the unblest, While yet his form and presence sat a guest With the old immortals when the feast was made. Thine like, thus differs; form and presence laid In this dim chamber of enforcèd rest, It is the unseen "shade" which, risen, hath pressed Above all heights where feet Olympian strayed. My soul admires to hear thee speak; thy thought Falls from a high place like an August star, Or some great eagle from his air-hung rings— When swooping past a snow-cold mountain scar— Down he steep slope of a long sunbeam brought, He stirs the wheat with the steerage of his wings.

ON THE BORDERS OF CANNOCK CHASE.

A cottager leaned whispering by her hives, Telling the bees some news, as they lit down, And entered one by one their waxen town. Larks passioning hung o'er their brooding wives, And all the sunny hills where heather thrives Lay satisfied with peace. A stately crown Of trees enringed the upper headland brown, And reedy pools, wherein the moor-hen dives, Glittered and gleamed. A resting-place for light, They that were bred here love it; but they say, "We shall not have it long; in three years' time A hundred pits will cast out fires by night, Down yon still glen their smoke shall trail its way, And the white ash lie thick in lieu of rime."

AN ANCIENT CHESS KING.

Haply some Rajah first in the ages gone Amid his languid ladies fingered thee, While a black nightingale, sun-swart as he, Sang his one wife, love's passionate oraison; Haply thou may'st have pleased Old Prester John Among his pastures, when full royally He sat in tent, grave shepherds at his knee, While lamps of balsam winked and glimmered on. What doest thou here? Thy masters are all dead; My heart is full of ruth and yearning pain At sight of thee; O king that hast a crown Outlasting theirs, and tell'st of greatness fled Through cloud-hung nights of unabated rain And murmurs of the dark majestic town.

COMFORT IN THE NIGHT.

She thought by heaven's high wall that she did stray Till she beheld the everlasting gate: And she climbed up to it to long, and wait, Feel with her hands (for it was night), and lay Her lips to it with kisses; thus to pray That it might open to her desolate. And lo! it trembled, lo! her passionate Crying prevailed. A little little way It opened: there fell out a thread of light, And she saw wingèd wonders move within; Also she heard sweet talking as they meant To comfort her. They said, "Who comes to-night Shall one day certainly an entrance win;" Then the gate closed and she awoke content.

THOUGH ALL GREAT DEEDS.

Though all great deeds were proved but fables fine, Though earth's old story could be told anew, Though the sweet fashions loved of them that sue Were empty as the ruined Delphian shrine— Though God did never man, in words benign, With sense of His great Fatherhood endue, Though life immortal were a dream untrue, And He that promised it were not divine— Though soul, though spirit were not, and all hope Reaching beyond the bourne, melted away; Though virtue had no goal and good no scope, But both were doomed to end with this our clay— Though all these were not,—to the ungraced heir Would this remain,—to live, as though they were.

A SNOW MOUNTAIN.

Can I make white enough my thought for thee, Or wash my words in light? Thou hast no mate To sit aloft in the silence silently And twin those matchless heights undesecrate. Reverend as Lear, when, lorn of shelter, he Stood, with his old white head, surprised at fate; Alone as Galileo, when, set free, Before the stars he mused disconsolate.

Ay, and remote, as the dead lords of song, Great masters who have made us what we are, For thou and they have taught us how to long And feel a sacred want of the fair and far: Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire— Our only greatness is that we aspire.

SLEEP.

(A WOMAN SPEAKS.)

O sleep, we are beholden to thee, sleep, Thou bearest angels to us in the night, Saints out of heaven with palms. Seen by thy light Sorrow is some old tale that goeth not deep; Love is a pouting child. Once I did sweep Through space with thee, and lo, a dazzling sight— Stars! They came on, I felt their drawing and might; And some had dark companions. Once (I weep When I remember that) we sailed the tide, And found fair isles, where no isles used to bide, And met there my lost love, who said to me, That 'twas a long mistake: he had not died. Sleep, in the world to come how strange 'twill be Never to want, never to wish for thee!

PROMISING.

(A MAN SPEAKS.)

Once, a new world, the sunswart marinere, Columbus, promised, and was sore withstood, Ungraced, unhelped, unheard for many a year; But let at last to make his promise good. Promised and promising I go, most dear, To better my dull heart with love's sweet feud, My life with its most reverent hope and fear, And my religion, with fair gratitude. O we must part; the stars for me contend, And all the winds that blow on all the seas. Through wonderful waste places I must wend, And with a promise my sad soul appease. Promise then, promise much of far-off bliss; But—ah, for present joy, give me one kiss.

LOVE.

Who veileth love should first have vanquished fate. She folded up the dream in her deep heart, Her fair full lips were silent on that smart, Thick fringèd eyes did on the grasses wait. What good? one eloquent blush, but one, and straight The meaning of a life was known; for art Is often foiled in playing nature's part, And time holds nothing long inviolate. Earth's buried seed springs up—slowly, or fast: The ring came home, that one in ages past Flung to the keeping of unfathomed seas: And golden apples on the mystic trees Were sought and found, and borne away at last, Though watched of the divine Hesperides.

FAILURE.

We are much bound to them that do succeed; But, in a more pathetic sense, are bound To such as fail. They all our loss expound; They comfort us for work that will not speed, And life—itself a failure. Ay, his deed, Sweetest in story, who the dusk profound Of Hades flooded with entrancing sound, Music's own tears, was failure. Doth it read Therefore the worse? Ah, no! so much, to dare, He fronts the regnant Darkness on its throne.— So much to do; impetuous even there, He pours out love's disconsolate sweet moan— He wins; but few for that his deed recall: Its power is in the look which costs him all.